One of this year’s most promising smartphones may have been delayed

By Ajay Kumar Published July 23, 2024

A person holding the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra. — Huawei Pura 70 Ultra Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Fans of the Huawei Mate 60 may have to wait much longer before getting their hands on the Mate 70. According to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, Huawei has delayed the launch of the Mate 70 series due to issues with getting its in-house processor working with its new platform process. Both adaptations are delayed, so the current release schedule is being pushed to the mid-to-late fourth quarter, so likely sometime in November or December.

The text is translated from Chinese, so it’s a little hard to parse, but to give you some context, Huawei launched the Mate 60 Pro with a 7nm 5G-capable Kirin 9000s chipset, along with SK Hynix RAM. This was a surprise because some of the components included in the device shouldn’t have been available to Huawei to use due to sanctions. It’s not clear how Huawei got around this problem at the time, but what we do know is that the Huawei Mate 70 should come running a more powerful Kirin 9100 chipset.

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For other specs, we expect a 1.5K LTPO OLED screen with 3D face scanning and a OmniVision OV50K sensor on the main camera with a variable aperture. The camera is what we’re most excited about, based on how well other top-tier Huawei phones like the P60 Pro have performed. Digital Trends’ Andy Boxall did a camera comparison last year, writing that the Pixel 7 Pro had finally met its match.

The Huawei P60 Pro's camera module. — Andy Boxall/Digital Trends / Digital Trends

Lastly, the Mate 70 should also come with larger silicon batteries, with a 5,000mAh capacity. That’s a nice step up from the Mate 60, which had a 4,750mAh battery.

Based on the Mate 60, we also expect the Mate 70 to have IP68 water and dust resistance, support for wired and wireless fast charging, and multiple rear cameras with wide, ultrawide, and telephoto sensors, at least. Since this is an LTPO display, you can also expect a 120Hz variable refresh rate, like last year.

The Huawei Mate 70 will likely be released in the Chinese market and possibly some other global markets in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, but it’s almost certainly not coming to the U.S. As we get closer to the end of the year, expect to get a more concrete set of specs and details about pricing.

Freelance Writer, Mobile

Ajay has worked in tech journalism for more than a decade as a reporter, analyst, and editor.

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